Tag Archives: swan hill

Event

A panoramic view of the Swan Hill club

It’s the first time that we have raced at Swan Hill in a very long time. We were back to our pre-World Championship numbers with a large number of us camping out at the airfield. There were 7 caravans or camper trailers this time. The club members made us feel very welcome and provided us with food for breakfasts, lunches and Saturday night’s dinner.

The weather was good with the rain stopping mid Friday afternoon and the rest of the time was mostly sunny with light to moderate winds.

Barry Murphy starting his Minute Master with call Andrew Arapakis

The racing for both days started with F400, followed by Q500 and FA1 to finish the day. Time allowed FA1 to complete 6 rounds on the Saturday so only needing 3 more rounds to be completed on Sunday. All classes completed 9 rounds over the weekend.

Thanks to the Swan Hill Club for manning the no.1 pylon timing cage, the VMPRA members who looked after the no. 2 & 3 pylons and as usual, Toni Axon for acting as starter and Nerida Matthews for the tireless job of time keeper/result recorder and keeping us moving along.

Results

FA1

Places:
1st Barry Murphy
2nd Gary Davidson
3rd Vernon Gibson

Fastest Time: 58:55 – Leigh Hocken
No. of competitors – 11

F400

Places:
1st Gary Davidson
2nd Jim Orenshaw
3rd Glenn Matthews

Fastest Time: 65.41 – Gary Davidson
No. of competitors – 8

During the F400 racing, there was the unfortunate demise of models belonging to Daniel Arapakis and James Hurley.

New Calendar Entries

It’s worth having a look at the events calander again as there have been some additions.

For this year, there have been 2 non-Championship events added.

A sports/Q500 event being put on in November by the LDMFA club. A great chance for those wanting to get into pylon racing, to give it a try.

At the end of the year, there is the 67th MAAA Nationals being held in Albury/Wodonga. We have decided to get right behind the Nationals by participating and also encourage others from surrounding states to come along.

The next event on the Calendar is the State Championship being held at Hamilton on October 12-13. I believe there will be a number of our South Australian friends coming to this event which will be great. I look forward to seeing everybody there.

John Schmidli (Report & Photos)
Additional photos thanks to Andrew ArapakisThe written content in this post is acurate to the best of my knowledge at the time of publishing. It is written from my perspective and reflects how I have experienced this event.Photos published as feature images are selected purely for their quality, general interest or topicality. They are chosen from a pool of photos taken by myself and others when time permits.If a perspective is not being represented, I am more than happy to publish any written content or photos that are supplied to me provided it is fair and reasonable.

Quick Reference

It’s not long now until VMPRA heads off to Swan Hill for a race weekend. This is a great opportunity to race at what is a new location on our race calendar.

We’ve been told that the airfield is looking nice and green after a good winter and warming spring. The runways are made up of mallee sand and gypsum (so nice and firm) and surrounded by green grass. Everything is flown here from EDF’s, nitros, fuel ….etc. Even turbines fly here once or twice a year.

There is free on-site camping, a hot shower and toilets. One of the members is supplying a sheep (butchered of course), so the food will be awesome.

Next Event

Less than a week now until we are racing down at Warrnambool. They’ll be a bit of preparation going on this week. Hope to see lots down there on the weekend.

Swan Hill Event is On

Andrew Davies has confirmed that the event at Swan Hill on September 14-15 is going ahead and the calender has been updated to reflect this.

It’s been quite a few years since we have raced there at Swan Hill so it would be good to promote this event and get as many competitor along as possible. In the last couple of years the club has experienced a real resurgence. The club has had a bit of a resurgence in the last couple of years and they are very keen to have us. There is a group of Swan Hill members that will probably camp at the site and they can also provide up to 8 helpers. They have free on-site camping, a hot shower and toilets and there is likely to be big brekky and lunch at very reasonable prices.

The strip is 50 metres from the pits and the runway is gypsum (no dust) and the club can mow a take-off square and roll it if necessary.

So lets try and make this a successful weekend. It would be great to see the guys from SA and the other eastern states there.